This video is an outtake from David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, an award-winning documentary by filmmaker Bruno Wollheim.
Watch the full film here: vimeo.com/onde...
David has always been keen to unmask or disassemble the conventions of visual representation. He is also a firm believer in the observer effect, that there is always a difference between the thing observed and unobserved, and no such thing as a disinterested onlooker.
For instance, in the joiner photographs he’d include his feet at the bottom. Watching news reports he’d be acutely aware of the camera’s point of view - what side is it on, whose permission, what access? - ditto his thoughts on history paintings, for instance on Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian‘ or Picasso’s ‘Massacre in Korea’. In 2003 he takes on this last painting directly, in a large watercolour painting he calls The Massacre and the Problems of Depiction. The general theme is the dishonesty implicit in the camera’s so-called neutrality.
In this clip he’s enjoying swatting the fly on the wall.
By this time I’d known David for 20+ years and had made Double Portrait, a film he’d liked and one which showed a darker side to his personality. I was trusted. We were friends, had quite a few friends in common, probably our strongest bond was art and art history, a subject I’d studied at college and graduate school. He found much to criticize in the subject, as I did. “Ask your art historian friends”, he’d josh, when he found some inaccuracy or worse, a lack of curiosity.
Our relationship? For a period of about ten years, between 2002 and 2012, David and I would speak almost daily. While I was filming I needed to know his movements, when the next significant milestone would be, the weather, when I might come back up to Bridlington, what was going on in his mind, in the news, the gossip. He would ring to tell me his progress and chat about his latest excitement. This was to continue after the film was finished and as David was going about the prodigious work required to fill the many large grand rooms at The Royal Academy with his images of Yorkshire. It was incredibly exciting to have such a front row seat as step by step the new art was being created.
It was also a professional relationship and in the nature of such things, with its unequal give-and-take and balance of power, a certain caution and circumspection was advisable. But it was also important to be oneself. I wasn’t going to be a yes-man, I didn’t unduly flatter, I would challenge David’s opinions when I disagreed with them, when asked I would give my opinion of a work, when I liked something I would admire it, and would also admit my incomprehension - above all I didn’t want to disrupt or distract. I was aware of the creative weight he was carrying, and that making the work took precedence over everything. At the end of each filming period, questions would hang in the air, his questions - what does the world really look like? Driving the five hours back to London I would feel sucked dry, both exhilarated and exhausted.
Filmed over three years with unprecedented access, A Bigger Picture captures Britain’s most beloved painter at work. David Hockney’s return from California to paint the East Yorkshire landscape of his childhood - outside, in all weathers, through the seasons - culminates in the largest picture ever made outdoors. It’s an inspiring story of a painter in creative dialogue with nature and photography, and a revealing portrait of Britain’s most popular and celebrated artist.
“This wonderful film … will be of lasting importance for future generations who want to understand Hockney’s art.” Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4
“Bruno Wollheim’s portrait of this forthright magus is an unqualified, life-enhancing joy from start to finish.” - The Sunday Times
“This film may well be the best anyone will ever make about Hockney’s process.” - The Times, London.
“As gently hypnotic and fulfilling as one of Hockney’s own works.” - Time Out
“This impressive documentary is almost cinematic in its scope… both majestic and intimate” - The Observer
Watch the full documentary here: vimeo.com/2248...
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